Stanford Memorial Church
September 2, 2007
ENTERTAINING ANGELS
C. George Fitzgerald, S.T.D.
Epistle Lesson :
Gospel Lesson:
Hebrews 13.1-8,15-16
Luke 14.1, 7-14
The writer of the Book of Hebrews, after spending twelve chapters interpreting
the Christian faith, concludes with a kind of basic road map on how we are to put that
faith into practice. Specifically, he admonishes his readers, “Let mutual love continue.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained
angels without doing it” (Heb. 13.1,2). When is the last time you entertained an angel?
This thought recently crossed my mind when I took an unexpected spill, this past week,
at O’Hare airport in Chicago—and immediately discovered how much damage a concrete
sidewalk and curb could inflict on my face and ribs. As I staggered to my feet, with
blood flowing from my cut lip, a Sikh cab driver care over and expressed concern,
handing me a paper napkin. This little gesture meant so much to me. As I proceeded to
walk to my shuttle stop I noticed another Sikh man standing alone about twenty years
ahead of me. As I drew closer he looked familiar. Then I realized this man looked just
like the coordinator of our Sikh volunteer at the hospital. Thinking, “it could not be,” I
hesitatingly asked, “Jag?” and he responded, “George?” I just had to touch him; it was
so wonderful having someone I knew in this moment of pain and loneliness. He asked
what he could do to help, and I felt entertained by an angel.
But who are angels? And how does this contemporary usage relate to
innumerable historic depictions and interpretations? Interestingly, all three of the world’s
major monotheistic religions—Christianity, Islam and Judaism—assume that angels are
part and parcel of reality. They are generally defined as existing in a position a little
lower than God and a little higher than humanity. They often have names, such as
Gabriel (who appears in both Christian and Muslim writings), and Michael, and—if we
include the Apocrypha--Raphael and Uriel. Nor are all angels assumed to be good.
Some, like Lucifer (or Satan, or the devil) are referred to as fallen angels due to their
desire and quest to be equal with God.
As many of you know, when the 1989 earthquake significantly damaged the
Memorial Church, one of the angels in the transept area tumbled down and smashed
some of the pews. When some lightweight theological reflection was engaged to
question why, of all the four angels, this particular one fell, it was noted that he was the
only one of the quartet who was looking down, while the others lifted their eyes to the
heavens. He was literally the “fallen angel.”
Angels certainly play a significant role in the life of Jesus the Christ. Prior to the
birth of Jesus, the angel Gabriel informs Mary that she will soon bear a son (Luke 1.31).
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After the resurrection of Jesus, according to the account in the Book of Matthew, once
again it is an angel who informs Mary of this miraculous event. In the centuries
following the life of Jesus religious art—paintings, mosaics, carvings, sculptures--has
been permeated with angels, usually depicted in long flowing robes, large wings, and
often a halo.
Even today, in our so-called modern era, angels show signs of being alive and
well. I suspect you have seen the little silver coins, about the size of a quarter, which
have a silhouette of an angel on them. We see them frequently in the hospital. Many
patients receive them gladly and not a few take them with them if they are to have
surgery or a serious diagnostic procedure.
Yet as far as I know, despite all the depictions and representations, no one has
actually seen an angel in person, let a lone carried on a conversation with one. If in fact
some one here is an exception and has actually seen an angel, I would be interested in
talking to you after the service. Or perhaps we will fare better with the newly announced
Vatican airline flights which will be visiting shrines such as Lourdes, Our Lady of
Guadalupe, or St. Anne du Pre. It would be hard to imagine getting much closer to
angels than this.
The representation of angels, however, has very little to do with their physical
appearance. Rather they represent an attempt to symbolize the close relation between
God and humanity. While the body image represents the human component, the
adornment of wings and a halo suggests the immediacy of the divine. The emphasis is
not on who these beings are, but on what has been done or is being done. In moments
when love is extended, an angel, the sense of the divine, is more present than ever. This
is especially true in on those occasions when love would not ordinarily be expected.
Thus the words of Hebrews, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by
doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it,” strike us as somewhat
audacious. We usually expect to find these representations at opposite ends of the pole.
On the one extreme the angel symbolizes the warmth, caring and closeness of God, while
at the other pole, the stranger has to do with that which is viewed with suspicion, kept at a
distance, and usually avoided. The words from Hebrews also echo our gospel lesson, the
well-known parable about the wedding reception—which always makes us a bit
uncomfortable. The thought of not taking the place of honor and deliberately taking “the
lowest place” just goes against our grain. We are much more comfortable with not
extending hospitality to the stranger and of going for the place of honor as soon as we get
through the door. But if we are the stranger, or the one elevated from the lowest place,
then we experience the presence of angels—then we know that God indeed is the great
doer of the unexpected.
What the writer of Hebrews does is remind us that these things do not happen in
some unrelated, happenstance way—though it may appear so at first glance. Rather we
are guided and sustained by an underlying dynamic. The very first verse gives the clue,
in four simple but profound words: “Let mutual love continue.” Mutual love . . . a
community of trust . . . caring for and being cared for . . . the assurance that nothing can
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separate us from God’s loving care . . . however it is experienced and described, this is
the prerequisite that enables, empowers and invites us to reach out to the stranger, to
entertain angels. It is a kind of in-your-face obvious truth that is repeatedly confirmed in
practice. Individuals who live within a caring and supportive community generally live
longer and healthier lives. When an individual enters a nursing home or is admitted to an
extended care facility, it is common knowledge that the person who reaches out to others
and establishes connections, especially during the first six months of occupancy, will
generally live longer; while the individual who stays to himself or herself and fails to
make connections with others will overall have a much short life span in the facility.
This is the ying and yang of the life of faith: gratitude and caring. The gratitude
for what we have received finds expression in reaching out to others, to the stranger in
need. And then in retrospect we have that sense of entertaining angels. This association
came to me this past week when I read a truly inspiring story in our weekly Stanford
Report about one of our physicians, Dr. Norm Rizk, coming to the aid of a trekker in
trouble during a two week vacation hiking in the Himalayas. Some of you may know Dr.
Rizk, a professor of pulmonary medicine who was the right person at the right time when
he learned about the man who was seriously ill with altitude sickness, evidenced by a
dangerously low oxygen level and coughing up blood. Dr. Rizk scrounged for oxygen,
fashioned together an oxygen mask device, spent the night caring for the man, and was
able to get him in a helicopter and flown to safety at a lower level the next day. A welltrained physician exercising his skill and training and a man having his life pulled back
from the brink of death--that sounds a bit like entertaining angels.
What a marvelous example—as we celebrate Labor Day this weekend—of what
labor should be all about. This of course was the ideal for the many reformers of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century who exposed and denounced the way millions of
people were being ground under the wheels of an out-of-control capitalism. Charles
Dickens, in his poignant and painful novels, such as Oliver Twist, lay bare the inhuman
ways in which children were exploited, whether as frail chimney sweeps dying of
tuberculosis, of sweatshop factory workers forced to work long hours—seven days a
week. Then we have the later writings and protests of the many Muckrakers such as
Upton Sinclair in his book The Jungle, exposing the horrendous conditions of the men
and women working in the meat-packing industry in Chicago. Charles Dickens, Upton
Sinclair and the thousands of others shared a common theme: Laborers should not be
exploited in an inhuman fashion and sent to an early death. Rather labor should have
dignity and contribute to the betterment of life—perhaps even conveying a sense of
entertaining angels, as in the striking example of Dr. Rizk. This truth and ideal was not
readily recognized. The so-called Robber Barons—Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller and
many others—hired thugs and goons to keep the workers in their place; while the
workers became increasingly aware of the need to organize and form unions, as their best
hope for surviving and prevailing. The early decades of the Twentieth Century proved to
be a watershed era in the American Labor movement, marked by extensive suffering,
violence and tragedy. Eventually, of course, the Labor movement prevailed, the capitalist
countries, especially the United States and many European countries, surged to a higher
standard of living. The so-called middle-class evolved, under girding a democratic way
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of life to help ensure that the poor would not be exploited by the rich. Some of the
capitalists, like Henry Ford, recognized an economic motive for improving the lot of their
workers. Ford pointed out to his fellow industrialists that by increasing the hourly wage
of his workers he enabled them to buy one of his Model-As which, in turn, also increased
his profit. It is also interesting to note how many of the well-known Robber Barons used
their vast fortunes to benefit society. The Rockefeller Foundation, for example, has
contributed immensely by supporting all kinds of programs to better life, many in the
area of health care. Andrew Carnegie, after accumulating his vast wealth, came to the
conclusion that the ideal in life was that a rich person should die as he or she came into
life, having donated his fortune to things such as libraries in almost every city in the
country, giving away 78% of is fortune before he died.
Some would say that the gains of labor are being seriously challenged by our Dot
Com economy. For a favored few—including many secretaries, office mangers,
engineers, etc.—it has been a boom time, with many becoming overnight millionaires.
Still the challenges appear as great as ever, as we are witnessing a declining middle-class,
as more and more jobs are out-sourced overseas, where the conditions of many workers
might be familiar to Charles Dickens and Upton Sinclair. And what about the vast
fortunes being accumulated by the Dot Com giants of Microsoft, Intel, Adobe, and
others? Of course they already have two good examples in David Packard and William
Hewlett, who must have been influenced one of the “Big Four” that founded the
California Central Pacific Railroad and decided to the bulk of their fortune and build a
little college in the West. Do you think that Jane and Leland Stanford knew they were
entertaining angels? When I look around the beauty and images of the Stanford
Memorial Church, I think they might have had an idea. If they could return today, they
undoubtedly would be overwhelmed with that their gift had produced. Amen.
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